Rachel Vincent - Before I Wake

I glanced around the room and frowned. Scott’s clothes were folded neatly on the open shelves bolted to the wall, but all of his other personal items—mostly photos of him, Nash, and Doug, who’d died of the frost addiction that drove Scott insane—were packed into an open box on the floor next to the desk bolted to the wall.

“Maybe they’re getting ready to move him,” Tod said, squatting to look into the box.

“Why? And where?” I didn’t look at his stuff. I didn’t want to see pieces of Scott’s shattered life and know that they all fit in a single box on the floor. I didn’t want to know how close Nash had come to sharing the same fate. I didn’t want to remember how I hadn’t been fast or perceptive enough to save either of them.

“Is there a way to let him see us without scaring the crap out of him?” I whispered, though my volume had no effect on whether or not Scott could hear me.

“There’s the slow fade-in,” Tod said, standing again, his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “But I’m a fan of the dramatic sudden appearance.” His grin was to lighten the mood, but I had trouble smiling at Lakeside. There was nothing funny about being locked up with only your personal demons for company.

In Scott’s case, the demon was real.

“Okay, here goes nothing.” I focused on Scott, trying to make sure he was the only one other than Tod who could hear and see me, in case someone else came in while we were there. That’s harder than it sounds, and I’d messed it up in practice more times than I cared to admit.

When I was pretty sure I had it right, I cleared my throat.

Scott’s eyes opened and his head rolled in our direction. His brows rose, but he didn’t look particularly surprised. Maybe because he was accustomed to seeing things that weren’t there. Maybe because he was used to seeing me in particular. Avari had been giving him hallucinations of me, a fact that creeped me out almost as badly as the hellion himself did.

“Hi, Scott,” I said, and he sat up slowly, feet on the floor, leaning forward with his hands curled around the mattress on either side of his knees. His eyes were clear and focused. He didn’t look medicated.

“I heard you were dead. Kinda assumed that meant I wouldn’t be seeing you again.”

“Sorry.” I wasn’t sure whether or not I should admit that I had, in fact, died. Scott was officially crazy, so no one would believe him, anyway. But I decided not to mention it. Just in case. “Scott, I need a favor. Could you ask Avari a question for me?”

“Why?” Scott looked straight into my eyes as he spoke, and his gaze was oddly steady.

“Because we can’t speak to him directly without crossing over,” Tod said.

“What if you could?” His focus narrowed on me, and my skin started to crawl.

“Then we wouldn’t be here asking you for help,” I said. We’d come prepared for a strange conversation with Scott, but I found this apparent lack of strange even stranger than the strange I’d been expecting.

“Why should I help you?” Scott demanded, and his voice had an odd edge to it now. He wasn’t confused by either our presence or our questions. “What did you ever do for me?”

Tod glanced at me with both pale brows raised. “Is it just me, or does he seem a little saner than usual?”

“Maybe he’s having a good day,” I whispered, desperately hoping that was true.

“I’m insane, not deaf,” Scott said, and when he stood, I backed away. I was already dead, but because I was corporeal—I had to be, for him to see me—he could do physical damage to me, as both my father and Tod had already demonstrated on Thane.

“Can Avari hear us?” I wasn’t sure if Scott served as a sort of amplifier, through which Avari could hear us directly, or if it was more of a messenger service, where Scott had to mentally ask Avari everything we asked him.

“He can hear you, so be careful what you say. He can see you, so be careful what you do.” Scott stepped closer, and I backed up as Tod stepped between us. The psych patient peered at me over the reaper’s shoulder. “And if you’d come a little closer, he’d be able to taste you, too. Though he’d settle for just a little whiff. ”

“I don’t want to punch a mental patient, but I will,” Tod growled.

“So the prince of death has become the white knight. I would not have laid wager on that.” In an instant, Scott changed, without changing at all. He stood straighter and suddenly seemed to take up more space in the small room than he should have. His gestures became formal, but didn’t seem overstated. He looked older. Scarier. He looked…familiar. “But you know you cannot wear both hats at once, dark prince. Not for long, anyway,” the Scott-thing said. “Someday you will have to choose.”

Chills raced up my spine “That’s not Scott.”

“I know,” Tod said as I stepped to the side for a better view around his arm. “Avari?”

Scott’s mouth smiled, and it was creepy to see the hellion’s mannerisms bleeding through the skin of a former classmate. “Human emotion is a handicap to a reaper, Mr. Hudson. She melts your cold heart and softens your hard edges, and she’ll keep at it until there’s nothing left of you but what beats and bleeds and burns for her. And then the formless lump of a man you’ll become won’t be capable of reaping souls. What will befall you then?”

“He’s possessed,” Tod whispered, and I could only nod, trying not to hear what Avari was saying. Trying not to remember that he couldn’t lie.

“If you stay with her, neither of you will see eternity.” Avari glanced at me through Scott’s eyes, and the hunger in them terrified me beyond what I’d thought I could feel in death. “Give her to me, and you will live forever.”

“I’m already dead,” I said.

“So am I,” Tod pointed out.

“But you don’t have to be.” The hellion focused on Tod, ignoring me completely. “Give her to me, and I’ll give you a body. A real one, that breathes and beats on its own. One that can age, and change, and truly feel every proper pleasure and base desire. And when that one wears out, there will be another body, fresh and young. They will stretch into eternity for you, and with them, untold lifetimes in the human world, a part of it again, instead of watching from the fringes. All of that, in exchange for one, insignificant little soul. You will forget about her by the end of your first mortal lifetime. Your second, at the latest. Or I could help you forget her now, if you’d prefer.”

Tod glanced at me, both brows raised. “Can a hellion go insane? Because I think this one’s lost his fucking mind.”

“I’m dead, Avari,” I repeated. “Doesn’t that make this whole stupid obsession kind of pointless?”

Scott clasped his hands at his back like an old man and tried to come closer, but Tod stayed between us, and the hellion didn’t seem to like having to look up at him. Or having to look around him to get to me. “Do you still have a soul, Ms. Cavanaugh?”

“Yes…” I said, and I could already see where this was headed.

“That soul is yet unsmudged, and unless I’m mistaken—” he made a show of sniffing the air in my direction, and my chill bumps doubled in size “—you died with other virtues intact. Do you have any idea how rare that is in today’s world?”

“So I’ve heard,” I mumbled.

“Now, if a hellion had access to the human plane, to a wealth of even purer souls and younger bodies, you might find your value eroded,” he continued. I didn’t give a damn about my value in the Netherworld, but I’d never been more relieved that Avari was stuck there. “Or perhaps not. There is something intriguing and rare about your persistent selflessness.” His frown was part fascination and part confusion, like he couldn’t quite figure out why I drew his interest.